The present invention relates generally to wheeled shopping carts of the type used by customers in grocery and other large stores to collect items to be purchased and to transport the purchased items to an automobile.
Such carts are typically relatively expensive items, and grocery and other stores lose a fairly large amount of money annually due to theft of such carts from parking lots. Most stores imprint identifying indicia on the cart, typically on the handle. However, such indicia are relatively easy to remove from stolen carts with a grinding tool or the like, allowing the carts to be re-sold or used without risk of identification of the legal owner of the cart.